Scott Nicholson - The Echo

“What are the three?” he asked.

“What’s that?” Franklin took back the binoculars and scanned the valley again.

“The three possibilities.”

“Well, they could have been taken by the Zapheads. Or they could have been taken by the soldiers. Or they could have left on their own, for another reason.”

“There was no sign of a struggle. Rosa would have fought.”

“That’s what I figured. She seems a little feisty.”

“She’s a good wife. And a good mother.”

“Yeah. And Cathy…who the hell knows what kind of mother she is.”

“But why would they leave? They had food, shelter, and security.”

“You want to know my theory?” Franklin shifted to the left to survey the adjacent ridge. The trees at the peak had already lost their leaves and were gray-brown sticks mixed with stunted jack pines. The slopes still bore swatches of deep scarlet, pumpkin, and brilliant yellow where the autumn wind had yet to scrub the limbs clean.

Jorge was afraid of Franklin’s theory, because it might confirm some of the dark worries he harbored deep inside. But every moment of uncertainty was another moment that his family was in danger.

“You think it’s the baby?” Jorge said. He touched his pocket where the scrap of paper bore those waxy words: “ He’s mad ”

“You seen the Zaps on the trail. Even when they attacked us, they weren’t real serious about it.”

“You shot them. No wonder they attacked us.”

Franklin lowered the binoculars and glared at him beneath iron-gray eyebrows. “Are you on their side now? Because this is us against them, and there are a lot more of thems than uses .”

“I’m not on anybody’s side but my family’s,” Jorge said. The plume of smoke in the valley had grown large enough that it was now visible to the naked eye.

“Well, I can respect that. But don’t go running off in the heat of battle next time. If we can’t trust each other, we don’t have a chance.”

Jorge recognized both the immediate need for survival and the long-term idealism in the old man’s declaration. For all his paranoia, Franklin was ultimately an optimist—a man who had high hopes for his race’s potential but had been continually disappointed.

“If the baby caused them to leave, where would they go?”

Jorge hadn’t been as repulsed by the mutant infant as Franklin had been, but now he belatedly assigned sinister motives to its behavior. What had compelled its mother to risk her life to save it? Indeed, why had he and Franklin rescued them when they were pursued by other Zapheads? And why had Franklin even allowed the creature into the compound, given his own hatred of the Zapheads?

But it’s just a child. A strange one, but an innocent child nevertheless.

“She might have decided to take the young’un to them .” Franklin squinted up at the eastern horizon where the sun staked its claim on this side of the world. “Maybe Cathy got changed herself.”

What if Marina and Rosa changed? Could I still love them? What if I’M changing?

“You think people can still catch the sun sickness?” he asked.

“I think you can be sick on your own.” Franklin stuffed his binoculars in his pack and shouldered his rifle. “We’d best get moving. I don’t want to lose these tracks.”

In the forest, they had located three sets of footprints, one of them smaller than the others. The mud didn’t reveal a distinct direction, but it was the only clue they’d found. Franklin figured the group had followed the easiest path down the valley. Even though Rosa and the others might have had a head start of as a much as a full day, the infant would slow them down.

As Jorge followed Franklin back to the trail, he wondered again why Rosa hadn’t left a sign or message. Secrecy wasn’t one of Rosa’s traits. But then, what man really knew a woman?

Franklin took the trail in great strides, erect and alert, while Jorge often fell behind, ruminating on the horrible possibilities. His obsessive thinking was counterproductive, but he couldn’t seem to break free of the anxiety and depression. To further complicate matters, he had killed a man.

Not a Zaphead—a man .

Even though he considered the murder an act of self-defense, he had crossed into a moral territory he never knew existed. And no amount of rationalization could bring that young soldier back to life. They hadn’t even taken the time to give him a proper burial, instead dragging the corpse into the woods and covering it with leaves, where the scavengers would soon find a feast.

Jorge was so fogged by his guilt that he nearly ran into Franklin when the old man stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” Jorge said, as Franklin slowly raised his hands into the air.

“Getting old, that’s what,” Franklin muttered. “Getting too goddamned old for this.”

That’s when Jorge saw the men on each side of the trail, aiming semiautomatic weapons at them.

Jorge considered going for his rifle, and then realized if Franklin hadn’t bothered to resist, their situation was indeed grim.

“Well, well, well,” one of the soldiers said, stepping out of the concealment of the bushes. His khaki sleeves were rolled up to the three stripes displayed at his biceps. A half-smoked dead cigar was jammed in one corner of his mouth, and he spoke around it. “You must be the notorious Franklin Wheeler.”

Franklin kept his arms raised. “I didn’t know I was notorious. I would prefer ‘legendary’ or maybe ‘visionary.’”

“You can’t become a legend until you’re dead. But maybe I can help you with that.”

Jorge mimicked Franklin by lifting his arms in the air, careful not to make any rapid movements. The two young soldiers behind the sergeant were nervous and wide-eyed, the tips of their weapons shaking as they pointed them at their new prisoners.

The sergeant nodded at one of them, and the soldier stepped forward and seized Franklin’s rifle first, and then Jorge’s.

“Who’s your buddy?” the sergeant asked Franklin. “One of your prepper militia?”

“I got out of the militia business,” Franklin said. “They tended to get their asses torched by the government.”

“Now, Mr. Wheeler, I’d say we’re past all that, wouldn’t you?”

Franklin grumbled as the soldier took his backpack and searched him for weapons. “You at war with the Zaps now?”

“He’s clean, Sarge,” the soldier said to the sergeant. Jorge didn’t think the kid was any older than nineteen.

“Check the Mexican,” the sergeant commanded.

“I’m an American ,” Jorge said, drawing a yellowed grin from Franklin. The soldier removed his pack and patted his sides and down his legs before stepping away and lowering his weapon again.

“So, where are you fellows off to?” Sarge said, striking a wooden match against his belt and lighting his cigar. “Deer hunting?”

“We’re looking for my wife and daughter,” Jorge said.

“Are they Zaps?”

“No, they’re Americans, too.”

One of the soldiers laughed, and Sarge shot him a menacing scowl. “Okay, smartass. You’re trespassing in a militarized zone. Under the Patriot Act, you can be confined without trial on suspicion of terrorist activity.”

“This ain’t no military zone,” Franklin said. “It’s a national park.”

“It’s the birth of a new nation, Mr. Wheeler. New laws, new boundaries. You citizens don’t know it yet, but as soon as the war’s over, we’ll set things right.”

“Christ,” Franklin said. “It’s only been six weeks since Doomsday and already the dictators and tyrants have climbed on the top of the heap like cockroaches at a garbage dump.”